Good evening board members. Thank you for allowing us time. Um just a quick little intro. My name is Stephanie Hatch. I am the swim and track booster presidents at Combmes High School. And um at the past few booster meetings that we've had, the question of charging an entry fee has come up in our discussions. Um, there are a few sporting events that do charge an entry fee, but there are many sporting events that do not charge an entry fee. And our thought is if we do consistently charge a sport entry fee, that might help with the maintenance of some of our fields and equipment that is needed. We also notice when we travel to other schools and we are charged an entry fee, it kind of is frustrating for us because we are supporting their athletic department and we would like to reciprocate have the the schools that come and play and visit our schools kind of help support our sporting events and teams and things like that.
Shante Rothschild. Hi. Ben Owens. Hi. Carolyn Lopez. Hi. Patty Coutrey. Hi. Robert Downey. I. So move. We now move on to item seven, action items. Specifically 7A, discussion and possible approval of the personnel schedule. Mr. Beckett. Thank you, President Downey. Members of the governing board. Dr. Lman, you have a busy personnel schedule in front of you tonight.
We had quite a bit of interest in Kerry School District 26 uh with a total I believe 10 contractors attending the the pre-bid meeting uh and tour of the district and seven bids were submitted uh for review. Uh of those seven bids uh Mr. Martin, our operations coordinator, and myself uh reviewed the three lowest bids, uh vetting them, contacting references, uh and we're pleased to present that our recommendation of the lowest responsive bid in our opinion would be uh the bid presented by Citywide Building Maintenance in the amount of $722,440 for year 1. Um I'm also pleased to uh say that Mr. Mark Batista, the president of Citywide Building Maintenance, is here with us tonight. And I believe this is the first time we've had uh one of our custodial contractors attend the meeting.
I looked into it. I I went to press um, looked at their footnotes and footnote one had said to replace the text in the sample with the district's mission and vision or belief statement. Um, so there you go. Um, it sounds like I agree with their lawyers that that is the general like goal here. We have just since done our strategic plan, so perhaps it's time to go back. So my recommendation would be to to replace the language of 130 with Kerry 26 mission and vision and that would be the following. The district 26 community is committed to providing a nurturing atmosphere where our students have a desire to learn and develop as critical thinkers and innovative creators who contribute to the world with integrity and purpose beyond themselves. We envision a learning environment where all are safe and belong. And so teaching and learning are the focus of our work and the catalyst for success.
This month, students have participated in projects and other activities to learn about the impact of black people within our country's history. I hope that each of us take a minute to learn or read something about the rich history of African-Americans in this great country. Um I share Mr. um Janzik's um thoughts about I'm excited this evening about the possible action that the board will be taking dealing with the construction and safety projects at um our buildings this summer um particularly Briergate and Oaknull. But I think we'll be touching each building um with with some various projects. Um, the work that we are moving forward with is the first phase of work that would truly not be possible without the taxpayers and the community of of Kerry. So, I'd like to just say thank you once again to those who supported the referendum and showed their support for ensuring our students have updated and safe learning environments.
We urge you to join us in writing the next chapter of our district's story. A story of hope, opportunity, and unwavering commitment to our youngest learners. Let's create a legacy they will carry on with them for generations. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Brown. We will now hear from Jason Tanel, a municipal adviser about how the proposed project will be financed as well as information about the effect on the typ typical property taxpayer. Welcome. Thank you very much and good evening. I'm going to hopefully attempt to share this uh presentation here. Perfect. Okay. Uh thank you very much for having me. My name is Jason Tansel, director with Baker Tilly, and we serve as the school corporation's municipal adviser. Now that we have had an opportunity to hear about the needs of this project, we will now review how the school corporation could pay for this project through the issuance of a bond not to exceed $28 million that will be repaid through the debt service fund tax rate.
So just some you know guidelines and I mention this every year you know what are we trying to do with our budget? One we have to understand uh that it needs to be fiscally responsible but meeting the needs of our kids, meeting the needs of our students. Uh we we believe in maintaining the staff and programs that we currently have, but trying to increase opportunities for kids as well and make our programs better. Um sometimes we include new personnel, sometimes we don't. And we'll talk a little bit about that later on. Uh provide adequate funding and programming. We've got to understand we've got a lot of different buckets of how programming is funded. And we'll we'll talk a little bit about that because I know there's concern, right? There's concern uh from a the lens of state finances but also uh the economic concerns uh at the um you know country level and what could potentially happen to uh those funds and but also meeting our goals, right?
there was some other ways to look at these things and yet nothing was proposed because they know they're not going to get the majority. It's like the majority of the people aren't going to go with that particular idea, this particular idea. So, if closing the middle school and doing what the mayor proposed is such a nasty thing, there's all kinds of other proposals that have been coming out in my from what I can tell and I'm not on the school committee, but there are other ways to reconfigure things and I get that parents want to know what their kids are going to do. I think um Mohawk is trying to figure out what they're doing about Hollowmon. Like, this is an annual occurrence and I have been pink slipped. so many times in April that I get how upset everybody is, including parents who thought that this is what's going to happen.
Um, healthy food option detailed above for the period July 1st, 2025 through Jul June 30th, 2026. Do we have a motion? Second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. No opposed. No abstensions. Do we have a motion to move the board of education approve the state department of education center for food and beverage items detailed above for the period July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. I'll make a motion. I'll second.
So we could get pretty granular and replace all what absolutely had to be replaced. How long when did Windows 10 come out? Like what like five, eight, 10 years. If you remember correctly, like you can't run a PC that's running Windows XP anymore, which is I think like 10 times. Oh, okay. Right. So if that's not going to run anything, it won't get any updates. It you won't be able to run most software because the software starts to uh outstrip the operating system, you know, and as Cassal said, it leaves us vulnerable. Um it leaves our network vulnerable. We can't add those packages and security updates. So these were bought about five years ago and they Windows 10 was original to them. Yes, they're I think they're actually a little bit older. They were six. We were hoping they were going to release seven. That was the original.
uh the work that you do for us is amazing and we're excited to hear your presentation. So, thank you and welcome. Hi everyone. While the presentation gets up, I'll just reintroduce myself. I'm Alexis Cukos, the executive director of DSAC. I'm also a graduate of Dan High School, class of 2012. So, it's really awesome to serve my community that I grew up in. Uh yeah, I'm Jen Tomo. I'm the chair of the board at DSABC and I also want to introduce you to several of our board members who joined us today. Um Jessica Westerfield, Sarah Ballard, and Jim. So today we're just going to give you an overview of what DSAC is for those of you that aren't as familiar with what we do and we'll give you an update on our progress this year. So our mission is to build the character and confidence of students in Danbury to achieve personal and academic success through business and community partnerships.
Can you say that number one more time? 2005. I have two questions. I just want to take a couple minutes to name the specific things that we worked on. Oh. Um Oh, do you have more to tell? No, I know. I I I love cuz I never do that. Oh, wait. Really quick. I'm so sorry. I did have something I wanted to really share. Sorry, I'm all over the place. So, what I did is I asked three of my students, um, what has your experience been with this? So, one of my students is one of those level two uh level one laws. So, they've been here for under two years. and I changed nothing. And what he said was, "Mrs. Borman, she teach me fractions and she helped me a lot. She gives all the students confidence and courage to go in front of the class and show their work." I was like, "I didn't know how to do it adding a simple fractions, but she teached me to do it and now I can do all my work.
It's like but I understand there was a summer break or whatnot but it was that that was like ouch that's a lot. Now have we had growth which is great but still over you know like I guess the best 70% 70% or more are one grade level or below uh no 63 68 okay so 60 so in fourth grade 63% of the kids are below grade level and it just goes up from there from the different grades you know what I mean so I'm just wondering is it okay Kath It's a better hand raised. I I mean I can only speak for my site, but when we took our first I Ready diagnostic, we're just kind of getting it done. It wasn't really until we took our second I'm ready diagnostic that like as a leader I was be able to talk to my site about having data chats and really like the meaningfulness of Ire and how it can be used.
Um I've been a speech therapist um for eight years. Wait, no. I've been in the district for eight years. I've been a speech therapist for five years. Yay. Um, okay. I just want to talk about case load and workload models. Um, so our case loads are just they're too high as we've heard. Um, they like the workload is is increasing like every day. It's it's more and more. Um, California has some of the highest case load size sizes in the country. And that was published um by ASHA and CASSHA which ASHA is the American Speech and Hearing Association and CASSHA is the California um association. Um the median manageable case load size was 40 and that was in 2022. So that's looking at the way things have changed over the years since 1980. Um it's just changing and our case loads are not. Um, so I just want to reiterate and request lowering case load and thinking about our workload when doing that, please.
Cheer has taught me a lot and brought me more out of my shell as a very shy person and I am grateful for our captains and our [Applause] coaches. I'm Ala and this is my first year. I decided to try it out for something new. I don't do any of these things but now I do. And I'm not all that bad. I got a medal again this later on this year and it was a good season and I like it. And then real fast her medal was for tumblings tumbled by herself against seven other girls in one third place. [Applause] The beautiful girl next to her also jumped by herself against around like seven people each and got third place. And while we were leaving, multiple people came up to us and said that she should have won first. [Applause] Let me let me interrupt real quick.
And then also um many many many years ago there was talks about an aquatic center being built and kind of just wondering where that stands and what the progression of that is. So my two questions for you are what is the progression of the aquatic center and the other question is um would you consider because we were told by our athletic director that if we want to charge a fee this is something that is decided upon you guys um would you be considered would you consider charging this entry fee for our sports events across the board not just the few selected ones that we are now. Okay.
I'll take any questions you would have at this point in time. Good evening, Mr. Beckett. Good evening, Mr. So where are we at with open teaching positions because I see a lot of new hires unfortunately I see also a lot of people leaving but so at this point in time got figures on Monday I believe Matray 25 gened positions still open and about a dozen special education positions now that was on Monday we continue to have new hire paperwork coming through on a consistent basis But uh we're still very very optimistic that we'll be ready for the start of the new year. And do we did we get all of our contracts returned? Yes, I was able to share some information with the uh with Dr. Lman and the cabinet. Um we had a 92% retention rate this year, people returning contracts. That's up from about 87% last year.
So, uh he felt it was important for the board to see him and uh uh he's happy to answer any questions the board may have in regards to um this partnership that we're about to embark on with Citywide Building Maintenance. Uh one of the questions that we had taken last week was about the transportation center. Uh in your weekend review, uh you will note that uh uh they did provide a quote for cleaning. Uh that cleaning we'd started off with once a week. I've seen that happen in in other districts where they only clean the transportation center generally on Friday afternoon uh or Friday evening. Uh and the the quote came in at about $2,500 uh per week. Uh of course, we'll revisit that once we have our transportation center uh built and and up and running. Uh but uh we wanted to provide that to the board tonight.
Just to clarify, so you want to just replace what's in there with the mission and vision, not add to what's in there. I believe it's just a straight replace. I don't know how the board feels. Thank you. Agreed. Okay. And so then Mindy, does that answer are you satisfied with that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My goal was to eliminate redundancy and be clear. We spent a lot of time on mission and vision. Let's replace this generic. Exactly. Okay. I'm bringing 140 back. This was taken out of the um manual as adopted, but it's 140 school district accountability and transparency. This is a D26 specific policy. It's not a press policy. Um but transparency and accountability are subjective. uh both are goals of the board and um sometimes well the D26 community demands these of the district and we also sometimes ask our stakeholders for accountability and you know um transparency as well.
Last week, principles, I don't um share often about the adult learning that takes place in our district, but I wanted to share that last week, principles and coordinators from all departments engaged in professional learning that allow them to better understand what a literacy lesson looks like from the lens of our students while also engaging in walkthroughs. Walkthroughs are non-evaluative quick observations of instructional practices in order to guide feedback to educators. Again, the goal of walkthroughs is not to evaluate. I say that over over and over again when I say walkthroughs. They are not to evaluate, but rather continue our shift of ensuring that our building leaders are focused on instruction and enga and can engage in conversations with teachers around instruction in productive ways. We will be continuing this work by referring by refining our walkthrough definition, practices, and protocols. And then lastly, it is that time of year again for five essentials.